whitey_rolls :
So pretty simple question. I'm looking to upgrade my GPU from an 8800 GT to likely one of the above cards (possibly an ATI 5850 or 6950).
The real issue is my CPU, I have a E8400 at 3.3 ghz. If I go with the higher end version will I just be bottlencked by the CPU?
What are your suggestions?
I had a similar system as yours; an 8800GT Turboforce Edition (700Mhz Core, 1715 Shaders, 1840 RAM)
and an E8400; I didn't overclock it tough.
- with Metro 2033 the E8400 was a bottleneck; I upgraded to a Q9550 and even at stock clocks - 2.83Ghz - lower than the E8400, I saw a huge improvement in framerates. Simply put, I had upgraded to a newer GPU, and the game was still slow. Upgraded the CPU and solved that problem.
- GTA IV also takes advantage of more than 2 cores
- newer games will take advantage of more cores, and it's best to have more cores than more clockspeed for newer games - as opposed to older games where dual core clockspeed is more important)
If I were you I'd get the GTX460 like I did, save the money from the difference the GTX560 would cost, sell the Xeon while it is worth something, and with all the money buy a Quad Core and overclock it a bit.
That's what I did. I have a more balanced system now.